A new start in Luxembourg

International Viewpoint, 6 November 1997

The European Marches (EM) movement as formally established
at a conference in Luxembourg on 4-5 October.
The network will be called European Marches against
Unemployment, Job Insecurity and Social Exclusion. A
constitutive motion was approved, establishing, among other
things, that "the network has a loose structure and
decisions are not enforceable on organisations or
collectives who are members. Decisions are not taken on a
majority basis but arrived at only after working towards a
consensus.

The network is pluralistic. Differences in the economic
situation across the European Union should provoke the
exchange of ideas and actions, rather than create division
within the movement. There is a general acceptance of
different approaches to common objectives, such as the fight
against unemployment, job insecurity and social exclusion.
The network is in no way a new organisation, nor does seek
to compete with existing European union structures (the
European Trade Union Congress, ETUC), or with existing
organisation of the unemployed, (the European Network of the
Unemployed, ENU), or with any other organisation involved in
the fight against social exclusion."

The first concrete initiative of the network was the
approval of the call for an EM demonstration on November 20,
in Luxembourg city at the same time as the meeting of the
European Summit on Employment.

Initiatives

We all know that it would be impossible to relive the
Amsterdam Rally every six months. On the other hand, we
need to fix long term aims to continue forward from
Amsterdam. Delegates agreed that we should not limit
ourselves to demonstrating every time there is a European
Summit! Though, obviously, organisations in the host
country of these Summits will inevitably put strong pressure
on the EM to organise something. The next European
Co-ordination meeting on 10-12 January 1998 will try to find
a way out of this problem.

Delegates evaluated the Marches earlier this year, and
concluded that they were part of a series of events that
might be pushing EU Member State governments to do
something about unemployment. Other factors include the
election of social democratic governments in Britain and
France, ETUC pressure, the initial promises of France's
Jospin government, and the campaigns for full employment of
the network of European economists, and members of European
parliament, animated by British MEP Ken Coates.
Over 100 delegates were present, representing 11 countries
(Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great-Britain, Greece,
Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, the Spanish state, and
Sweden). Irrefutable proof of the dynamism created by the
launch of the European Marches.